Reunification

This weekend was the celebration of the 20th Anniversary of German Reunification and the Fall of the Wall. One of the big attractions (oh, this is an unintentional pun) here in Berlin was the 3-day performance by 2 gigantic French marionettes ("Die Riesen"), a little girl looking for her uncle who, inexplicably, is dressed in a deep-sea diving costume, and stands 15 meters high. For two days they meandered separately around the center of Berlin, with their teams of cranes and people swinging from cables to move their limbs, and on the evening of the second day they were, yes, reunited, and spent Sunday wandering together, eventually leaving in a boat. Did I mention they were French?

I saw a brief video clip of their previous performance of this drama in the streets of Paris (funny, I don't remember a reunification issue in France), and decided it would be an interesting spectacle.  I invited Hannah to go with me to Pariser Platz on Saturday for the experience. Crowded doesn't begin to describe it. Even when viewing pre-Popemobile John Paul II in Paris 30 years ago, I don't know that I've been part of such a large mass of living organisms all trying to see the same thing at the same time. (I'm sure the crowd would have reduced its volume by at least a third had those huge baby strollers been banned. There's a reason why the Victorian pram became outmoded! Why don't people understand this?)  And had I not misunderstood the printed schedule, we might actually have been able to see at least one of the puppets in action.

I thought they finished at 3:00, so we went down around 2:00. No, apparently they took a midday break and didn't begin again until 3:00, so what we saw was the girl puppet sleeping, complete with snoring sound effects. That's it. A few giant snores and a half million Germans. Hannah had brought a friend and neither of them wanted to wait a long time to see if something would transpire, so we exited Pariser Platz and went to a large special-event flea market at Ostbanhof instead. It, too, alas, was a flop. Nary a trinket caught my eye nor was Hannah satisfied in her continual search for furniture.

On my way home I had the oddest sensation of being in Seattle. There is a tram stop near a bridge that has the same feel to it as any of a number of the Seattle bridges, and the street even feels a bit like First Avenue. Very dreamlike and disorienting; surreal; like waking up and not knowing where you are. Perhaps I was unconsciously imitating the little giant girl who perhaps should have awakened in Paris...